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“That’s not true. You have a higher calling, Mr. Pitts.”

“I’m God’s special little snowflake. You don’t have to tell me.”

I take a pull on the cigarette. Watch Daja moving smoothly through the havoc, a wolf watching over her flock.

“What’s Daja’s story?”

“Her name is Dajaskinos,” says Traven. “She’s the Magistrate’s second in command. She’s very devoted.”

“They lovers?”

“No. More like father and daughter.”

“Was the guy I fried her lover?”

“I don’t know.”

“She really hates me.”

“She’s suspicious. You didn’t come to us in the usual way. Usually, we pick up new members from volunteers among groups we encounter.”

&n

bsp; “The ones that survive the havoc.”

“That’s usually the way it works.”

I watch Daja until she steps into a city bus blaring smoke and music. The smoke from whatever they’re cooking doesn’t smell bad.

I look at Traven.

“Am I going to have to kill Daja?”

“Please don’t,” he says, his eyes going a little wide. “And don’t talk that way around here. She is powerful and respected.”

“I was afraid of that. The worst kind of boss: a good one. Don’t worry. I’m not killing anybody. I’m just making conversation. It would put you on the Magistrate’s shit list and me back where I started.”

“Which is?”

“Dead, lost, and with only half a pack of smokes. The dictionary definition of Hell.”

“Amen to that,” Traven says. He goes into the camper and I follow him.

In a few minutes, he goes out and comes back with a couple of plates heaped with Hellion meat and something that’s sort of like gluey mashed potatoes. The meat is a little gamy, but I dive in headfirst and don’t come up until I’ve finished every scrap on the plate. Traven offers me some of his dinner, but I wave a hand at him.

“I don’t want you eating my sins and I’m sure not eating yours.”

He laughs and goes back to his food.

When he’s through, we smoke and talk. I tell him more about Brigitte. Everything I can think of. Later I explain how we had to fake Candy’s death and how she’s Chihiro now. When Traven asks about my murder I tell him what little I know. Ishii. Me letting down my guard. The funny hoodoo knife he used.

“If Ishii is the lowlife you describe, where would he get a knife like that?” says Traven.

Why the hell didn’t I think of that?

I sit there like a dummy trying to come up with an answer. Did he buy it off some witch with a grudge? Maybe from the White Light Legion? There was also one of the Augur, Thomas Abbot’s bodyguards, who didn’t like me. What was his name? Maybe he could come up with a weapon like that. Then something else occurs to me.

Wormwood.